Brian France on Nascar’s Future: ‘We Can’t Stand Around’

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Brian France, the chief executive and chairman of Nascar, at a news conference in February.CreditCreditChuck Burton/Associated Press

By Peter Kerasotis

Feb. 19, 2016

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Brian France, grandson of Nascar founder Bill France, has been the organization’s chief executive and chairman since 2003, overseeing record television and sponsorship contracts as well as implementing seismic changes, like the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Four days before the Daytona 500 kicks off the Nascar season Sunday, France, 53, sat down to discuss the state of the circuit. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Q. In Charleston, S.C. last summer, we all know what happened with the church shooting. At the time, the politically correct thing was to denounce the Confederate flag. Nascar was one of those voices. But then the news moves on. Eight months later, where is Nascar with the Confederate flag? You made some strong statements at the time denouncing it.

A. I made strong comments a decade ago. I’ve always felt strongly that the Confederate flag and other symbols like that are not representative of Nascar, even though I respect anyone’s right, because it does mean different things to different people. It’s Southern pride. My assistant is a Georgia girl. To her, it doesn’t mean an offensive thing. But what I try to tell people who disagree with me is that it doesn’t matter what it means to you. What’s important is that it matters to somebody else. It’s an offensive thing to an entire race of people.

Q. So what can you do? If I walk into a venue that someone owns and I’m wearing or displaying something offense, I can be asked to leave. Has it reached that point, where you will ask a person to leave who has a Confederate flag on his R. V.?

A. Well, generally it doesn’t come to that. Usually, we exchange it with another flag, or work with them. The trickier part is that a lot of the real estate we don’t control. Across the street, that’s private property.

Q. But I’m talking about your property.

A. Our property, we’ve taken the position that we’re phasing out the Confederate flag.

Q. It’s a curious thing, because we’re talking about something as deeply rooted as the Confederate flag, and yet there’s a large segment of fans who are still upset with Nascar’s relationship with Toyota. If people are still this upset with Toyota, you must get tremendous pushback over the Confederate flag.

A. Yeah, a little bit. But, you know, every league has its own challenges. Some have mascots that people aren’t fond of. You just try to do what’s socially sensitive and try to work through those things.

Q. Why is it so hard to get African-Americans interested in Nascar in a way that they’re interested in other sports?

A. It isn’t hard on one hand because most people like car racing and they understand it. They drive a car. They can relate to it on some level or another. The trick is, on a participation level, there aren’t as many opportunities. We have 40 teams that compete, and they have long careers. They don’t change that often, so it’s a matter of getting somebody noticed, in place, and ready to go, which is part of our Drive for Diversity initiative, which has yielded some real good results, with drivers like Darrell Wallace Jr. being one, Daniel Suárez being another, being positioned should that opportunity come around.

Q. How important is diversity for Nascar?

A. It’s right up there, in my view. But it has to happen organically. We do things to promote and give opportunities. But the talent has to come organically. And I’m confident that it will.

Q. Do you ever get tired with the perception that the sport isn’t as good as it used to be? People forget that there were races where drivers would win by an entire lap. Do you get a little annoyed when fans have this perception of the past that maybe isn’t reality?

A. Naw, no.

Q. But you just laughed a little bit when I mentioned that.

A. Well, I do get the emails with comments about that. But the expectations are higher in general. If you look at any league, they’re all trying to figure out how to make the game more exciting, speed the game up, whatever it may be. In our case, it’s the same. The expectations are higher, but they’re higher for everybody.

Q. You have a youth movement going on right now, led by Chase Elliott. How important is that to Nascar going forward?

A. It’s critical to have the right talent coming in to compete and win. The first thing I said to Chase Elliott when I was in Iowa at a same race as him, I told him, and he was humble as his father is humble, I said, “Look, you can’t be happy just to be here. Don’t be saying, I can’t believe I’m here. You’re here because you’re good. You’ve got to go out now and win.” I always tell young guys that. Don’t be thanking everybody for being here. You’re here because you’re good. There are no good Samaritans in this industry. You’ve been given the opportunity because people think you can win. So you’ve got to do that.

Q.February 18 marks the 15th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt’s death. Where were you when you heard the news that Earnhardt had died?

A. I was obviously here at the race. It was stunning, because he was Superman to most of us. I got the phone call, here in my office, from the hospital that he didn’t make it. I knew it was a bad accident. Anytime you get carried to the hospital you know something isn’t right.

Q.They knew he was dead in the car.

A. Well, they were hoping he wasn’t dead.

Q. Like John Lennon when he was shot outside the Dakota building.

A. Yeah, it’s one of those things. So we all met, and it was a tough time, a real tough time. It’s personal. It’s highly personal to people in this industry who knew him as a great driver and a good person. It’s shocking. I don’t care how long you’ve been around in this business.

Q. How does Nascar balance honoring the anniversary of his death with the fact that he was killed at your premier race?

A. And also at the start of our FOX relationship. It’s part of your past. You mark it and you remember it, and it remains a devastating day 15 years later.

Q. You announced last week that team owners are going to be charter members and that this will help ensure financial stability. What is the financial stability that they’re getting from Nascar?

A. They’re getting long-range visibility tied to specific things. In the old days, it was year-to-year with prize money, television revenue and the rest of it. What we’ve done is negotiated long into the future and tied that to specific things that they can count on if they perform at a certain level. Then we’ll come behind with ways to help them bend the cost curve down, too, which will be another big part of it. So not only will they get guaranteed spots, they’re going to have a business model that works a lot better. It’s more predictable.

Financially, it’s going to work better. That will make us more attractive. One of our main goals is not just to shore up their business model, although that’s important, it’s also to attract new capital and new ownership into the sport. You can’t do that with a model that is year-to-year and sort of convoluted in the way we were doing it in the past. So we’ll see how that goes.

Q. Is there going to be money that is going to filter down to them from Nascar, other than TV money?

A. Yeah, there’s going to be money coming from a lot of places that is more long-term committed to them. And, as I said, one of things that we will be working on as a group is to bend the cost curve of auto racing, which is a huge problem, a huge challenge. Trying to get that under control, and being able to do that in a lot better fashion because of the way we’re structured.

Q. What would your dad, Bill France, who preceded you as C.E.O., have thought about this?

A. Oh, goodness, he was pretty conservative, so he didn’t want to change things that were working well. But my experience with him is, he was pragmatic, so when you presented him with all the facts that I see, he probably would’ve been supportive.

Q. Owners used to be independent contractors and you guys ruled somewhat with an iron fist. You were the final word. Now there is franchising and all these different councils. Is there is some concern not to accede too much? Sort of like a parent, you don’t want to give the kids too much power.

A. That’s precisely what I told our owners. I think that’s true. We know that our responsibilities lie in being able to be decisive, being able to do things. On the other hand, this is a different time, right? More collaboration, more people invested into the future with us, is a good thing. If we need to get tough on things, we can and we will. But it’s a goal of mine to be more collaborative. I think that we feel that this is the way it should be structured to meet the new demands.

Q. What’s your vision for Nascar’s future?

A. I think with all the decisions we’ve made, some were controversial and some were difficult, like with the Chase, and then going to an elimination-style format. With auto racing, most people say, you can’t do that. It’s not historically accurate to do it that way. You can’t do that. Well, we did that. I always have to remind myself, and everybody else, that we’re in the most competitive marketplace in the world for sports. There are so many sports and leagues and tournaments – and by the way, they’re all doing well – so we’re in that situation.

Q. So what you’re saying is that you can’t sit still.

A. We’re trying to make our product more exciting, the race experience better and make the model more attractive so we can have more ownership and have more competitive teams. We’re just trying to make everything better. And it’s the policies we put in place, and hopefully we make the right ones, that give people confidence that we get it. We can’t stand around in this very competitive place in the United States. You know, they’re going to Los Angeles with the N.F.L., they have a playoff now in college football, and they didn’t have that two years ago. Tournaments are getting bigger and events are getting better.

We have a nice position in sports, and we’re real proud of that. But we’re also mindful that we have to do it every day and we have to put policies in place that promote these things and give us a chance to be at our best. You asked before about emails flying in, talking about the quality of the racing. But that’s the expectation now. They expect a very close, highly contested event. We don’t always do that, but we try to do that. Fans expect that. That’s O.K. If I was a fan, I’d expect a 32-30 game myself. I like more offense. I like more excitement. We’re no different. And we are unabashed about understanding that. We’re not purist. We know where we’re headed. We’ll see if we can get there.